Business Secretary Vince Cable is to set out the Government's plans on
executive pay a day earlier than expected after being summoned to the
Commons today to answer MPs' questions.

The surprise move followed a decision by Speaker John Bercow to grant Mr Cable's shadow Chuka Umunna an urgent question after Labour complained that the Business Secretary was planning to announce his proposals in a speech to a think-tank tomorrow, rather than facing MPs.

Labour said that Mr Cable must not be allowed to ''duck'' parliamentary scrutiny of ''half-baked'' proposals to curb City excess.

The Government's long-awaited clampdown on corporate pay was due to be unveiled in a written statement to the House of Commons tomorrow by Mr Cable, ahead of a speech to the Social Market Foundation in London.

Mr Cable will now set out the Government's plans in full when he addresses MPs later today.

A source close to Mr Umunna said: ''Given the critical importance of this issue, Vince Cable must not be allowed to hide or duck out of Parliamentary scrutiny of this week's announcement on executive pay.

''So, we have forced him to come to the House today to make the announcement to Parliament first.''

Reports have suggested that Mr Cable plans to change the rules surrounding the remuneration committees which set top salaries, as well as introducing new requirements for transparency on pay.

He is also being urged to grant workers a say in bosses' pay packets and to curb ''reward for failure'' payoffs for executives who depart companies.

David Cameron appeared to be unaware the announcement had been brought forward when he was asked about the issue during a visit to Leeds.

The Prime Minister said: "I think it's a good idea for organisations - and Government's going to do this - to look at pay ratios, so everybody knows what the ratio between what the bottom paid person and the top person is. I think that's a healthy thing to do.

"But you'll have to wait for Vince Cable's annoucements tomorrow. We'll be making clear exactly what the Government's going to do in this vital area."

Mr Cameron appeared to rule out the idea of putting workers on remuneration committees.

He said: "I don't think that's the right answer. I think the answer is to empower the shareholders, to have much more transparency, to have clear votes on pay packages and, particularly, to make sure people can't get these rewards for failure, where some executives who do not perform well get massive pay-offs.

"Those are the things we need to stop and that's the action that will be taken."